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Low Powered Autonomous Underwater Vehicles for Large Scale Ocean Bottom Acquisition
- Publisher: European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers
- Source: Conference Proceedings, 81st EAGE Conference and Exhibition 2019, Jun 2019, Volume 2019, p.1 - 5
Abstract
Conventional 3D streamer acquisition has been the dominant tool in seismic exploration and development for the past 20 years. This dominance has been built on high efficiency but at the cost of a limited sub-surface coverage. Ocean bottom acquisition, on the other hand, delivers full sub-surface coverage (full-azimuth and long-offsets), but its deployment is slow and expensive, limiting its applicability to high value development projects. Advances in robotics create the opportunity to change the way ocean bottom acquisition is performed. We present an acquisition system based on low powered Autonomous Underwater Vehicles which has the potential of improving enormously the efficiency of ocean bottom acquisitions. In the correct design, we can see the AUVs reducing the costs differential with towed streamers so that these acquisitions may become the norm in the near future.